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18 February 2008

Today's Must-Read

I am not worried about the future of the book. I am not worried about the future of reading. I am not worried about the future of spelling (I am almost-but-not-quite ready to accept the “spelling is relative” argument, !@#$ British and their extraneous use of “U”). I am worried about the future of publishers.

By publishers, I mean traditional, bound-copy based, royalty-paying publishers. Oh, I don’t think they’re going away for a good long time, but I do think we’re seeing the beginning of a serious challenge to the status quo. This means a slow (publishing being a very slooow business) shift from authors who are grateful for any crumbs thrown their way to authors who will ask “So tell me again, what can you do for me?”.

The rest of the post is full of ideas, hypotheses, and possibilities. It's also worth comparing it to this Galleycat post about Tim O'Reilly's presentation at the Tools of Change conference, where O'Reilly discussed the difficulties of giving content away for free.